Geez guys, I’m sorry I’ve been so bad about updating. If you knew what my weekend was like, you’d understand. Which, coincidentally, I’m now going to tell you about.

First, we should back up. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. I know mine wasn’t half bad. It was my first turkey-day with a new family so there were some minor meal-based differences. They didn’t have mashed potatoes and the stuffing was corn bread based, stuff like that. Nothing that would keep me from stuffing myself of course. It was all pretty tasty. Lauren even made me an apple pie which was delicious (and which I’ve since finished all by myself).

Friday was my very first wedding to shoot. It was supposed to be a slam-dunk and was basically going to be my first step into wedding photography. I’m semi-reluctant to take over Paul’s wedding business since I’m really not 100% into wedding photography, its not bad, it’s just not really my thing. But the money is good and if I get good at it I can pull in a couple thousand extra each month, which is pretty important at this point. Anyway, the wedding was a complete disaster and basically sucked beyond all others. Thankfully it was all them and not me. I did fine. I got the shots I needed and did everything I could have. The bride and groom basically just screwed up their wedding for themselves. The groom locked himself in the bathroom, the bride didn’t want any pictures of herself, that sort of thing. The ceremony started an hour late, everything was rushed, the DJ sucked, the reception was unorganized and chaotic. I just took pictures of the chaos and watched the shit hit the fan. They may not want to remember their wedding, but they’ll have some kick-ass pictures of the bedlam. It was that kind of night.

Saturday was day 1 of the Miss Texas Teen Pageant. A collection of some of the most artificial people I’ve ever seen. 150 girls, ages 15-19, “competing” if you want to call it that, for the crown. Since modern beauty pageants have done away with the “talent” portion of the competition it’s not really that much of a contest any more. It more along the lines of “who annoys the judges the least”. But that’s just my opinion. I’m sure some of those girls might actually have a talent or two but simply standing on stage and smiling doesn’t cut it for me. Anyway, after getting there around 7am and setting up lights and a background we started taking pictures of the girls before their “interviews”. I’m not really sure whats involved in something like that but it can’t be all that involved if the time limit is 2 minutes. Regardless, the girls dressed up in their interview suits and talked to the judges for a while and we took pictures. More accurately, Paul took pictures and I printed buttons. Now, you’d have to actually go to a pageant to understand this button thing, and, since I’m suggesting that you never go within 100 miles of one of these, you’ll just have to take my word on this. Buttons, in the eyes of a pageant mother, are apparently the magic golden ticket. Seemingly, the more buttons you buy the more luck and support is magically bestowed upon the contestant. Or so you would think if someone came up to you and asked for 16 buttons with their girls head on them. Its not my job to argue so I started printing. Which, in itself, is a mindless task of finding the girl in the pile of thousands of pictures we’ve taken that day, picking a good one, cropping it to 3.5″x3.5″ and printing it out, 4 to a page. Oh the joy I had doing that. After a long ass day of that sort of thing, we got to shoot the show itself. Kind of. The “show” is technically the next day BUT when, in the first 5 minutes of that show, the contestant list is narrowed from 150 to 15, the prelim show the night before is our only opportunity to get a picture of every contestant. This is what we sell photo packages based on. So, that went on till about 10:30. I won’t go into boring detail about the show itself because, honestly, I know you guys just don’t give a shit.

Sunday was the “real” show and so basically it was a repeat of the day before, only thankfully shorter. We wrapped up around 5:30 and I was able to get home and have a nice dinner. Lauren, Robin and I went out to Olive Garden because I hadn’t eaten anything all day and Lauren was feeling like some pasta. After dinner we decided to check out Love Actually. Not a bad movie if you liked Bridget Jones Diary or Notting Hill. Same writer. Funny guy, British and what not. Great cast in this one too. But I’ll let you check out the IMDB link yourselves. The movie wasn’t bad and was pretty funny. I give it a strong “date movie recommendation” or at least a rental. The significant other will appreciate you being willing to see what is basically a chick-flick, which you can use to your advantage later when you really want to watch that action flick next time.

That pretty much rounds out my weekend. Today I’ve just relaxed a little. Done a little shopping, run some errands and checked out a little Call of Duty for the PC. I’ll let you know how it is.

Thats about it kids. Matt out.